


Closing

by StellarWind Elsydeon (StellarWind)



Category: Original Work
Genre: End of the World, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarWind/pseuds/StellarWind%20Elsydeon
Summary: Just the end of yet another failed project...





	Closing

Truth of the matter is, it was somewhat awkward to give the Engineers the word. They've put years upon years of work into the design and spent multiple days and sleepless nights on the little details. When they were told the project was cancelled for budgetary reasons and that they're leaving the place just the same as it was before they even started working, it rather hit them like thunder on a clear day.  
  
Of course, there were a few who protested and a few who arranged lobbies for saving the project. One of them asked why not leave the project, as they say, indefinitely, and simply cut it off the budget. The lesser officials announced that for their part, they honestly tried to convince the relevant instances, but the relevant instances announced that the last project they cut off from the budget rusted in a really horrifying way and that the solar system isn't willing to be responsible to another lump of rust in orbit. There have even been a few who stood up to defend the project with their bodies. But eventually, the administration made it perfectly clear that they're folding everything - with or without them - and they decided that it was better, as far as _this_ struggle was concerned, to fall back... Mostly because in their field - and with this blasted monopoly - finding new employers would have been far too much trouble for its worth.  
  
And the administration smiled wearily. What else could it have done? They really DID put all the effort they could into this project. Honestly. It was the most promising thing that they had in billions of years. "Organic life would be _the_ next big hit!" they thought as they invested in the research of the exact right conditions - the suitable distance from the energy source, the emission gasses, the chemicals. They were concerned at the very beginning, for a moment, when everything started collapsing onto itself, but then they threw in those 'Mitochondria' that junior engineer was so bloody excited about - and they saw how nearly immediately, organic life made a leap and took over the project from the inside. He got a promotion, of course. Got a whole aeon to do whatever he wanted with. And then he came up with these huge weird lizards of his all over the place. So many variations on one pathetic little lizard… No creativity at all. They fired him after a few million years and raised a little harmless catastrophe to compensate for the atrocity. Only played with the orbit a little bit - enough to freeze everything and kill everyone. One of them, just for kicks, tossed a little pebble smack dab in the middle of a big blue spot that was mostly composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Who would have figured out the results would be _that_ drastic?  
  
It was a little _too_ close for comfort.  
  
"On second thought maybe we should have stuck with the lizards," Said one junior accountant, leafing constantly through his checkbooks "I can see a hell of a lot of budget going into reconstructions of these things."  
"I actually see a lot of money pouring in because of them," replied a slightly more senior economist "I mean, think of the merchandise! Books, movies, toys… Organic Life, the marketing line! The Lizard Age!"  
"I think we have something much bigger to be concerned about." Said one of the managers - the ones who always sat in the shadows and only few saw their faces and lived to tell the tale.  
"What, you mean blue whales?" asked the economist "No worries, we're already onto that."  
"No, no, no… I think that things down there are kind of getting out of hand. Some cruddy little life-form is utterly pulverizing anything else as a side effect of its own nonsense…"  
  
And he pointed towards a monitor that showed, in real time, just what the hell was going on down there.  
  
"And we thought we had a Nobel Prize on our hands…" sighed another manager.  
"There's nothing else that we can do. We need to save what we can and just fold everything."  
  
The vote, as expected, was cast quietly without unnecessary questions. The evacuation was done silently, without (nearly) anyone noticing what was going on - and after a while, they've started preparing the grounds for demolition. Right before the historical moment of the deconstruction beams' activation, movies were showed from the surface of the project - from the very beginning of life to the utterly insane war that was raging down on the surface, slowly but systematically wiping out whatever still remained of the organic life they put so much time, effort and resources into.  
  
"There goes another one. Straight down the drain, the bugger. What a shame. And it had SO much potential, too…"  
  
And there wasn't a soul in the hall who didn't shed a tear as the beautiful blue beam encased the project - a slightly oblate sphere, mostly blue but sporting designs in brown and green upon its surface - and sliced it to accurate slices, then disintegrated them to molecules, then to atoms, then to sub-atomic particles, until at last, it dissolved completely.  
  
Earth.  
  
Another failure in a long list of failures to create a world that something actually _moved_ on, rather than just standing there like some bloody ornamental statue. First Mars and now _this_. The administration sighed again and seriously started considering an early retirement - or at least a very long vacation.  
  
… But in the end, it was all for the best. Even the engineers thought so.


End file.
